A notable 2004 pic:

2011/08/13: BBC: Somalia famine: PM Ali sets up aid protection forceSomalia’s prime minister has announced the creation of a special force to protect convoys delivering aid to people affected by drought and famine. Abdiweli Mohamed Ali said the force would comprise 300 trained men, helped by AU peacekeepers who are currently providing security in Mogadishu.

2011/08/14: UN: On ‘heartbreaking’ visit to Somalia, UN relief chief urges safe passage for aid workersThe United Nations relief chief visited the capital of Somalia today, stressing that aid workers must have safe passage to those in need so they can save the lives of millions of people at risk from malnutrition or infectious diseases as famine grips the Horn of Africa. On a one-day visit to Mogadishu, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos toured Banadir Hospital — one of just four locations in the war-wracked city where children suffering from acute malnutrition are being treated. Ms. Amos described the scenes she witnessed in the hospital as heartbreaking. “The children are so weak they can’t lift their heads, while their mothers are in despair,” she said.

2011/08/10: CNN: Why Americans should care about famine in AfricaFormer Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Jill Biden visited refugee camp – Frist says famine in Somalia has resulted in thousands of children’s deaths – He says investing in relief and in improving health can pay dividends – He says Americans will respond generously despite hard times in the U.S.

2011/08/10: CNN: Saving Ahmed from starvationInternational Rescue Committee hospital is filled with people starving to death – Ahmed Mohammad, 6, is treated for malnutrition at hospital on Somalia-Kenya border – Once fat is all gone, a starving person’s body resorts to eating muscle tissue – Patients like Ahmed must be given calories in small amounts because of shrunken stomachs

2011/08/09: NatureN: US launches eco-network [National Ecological Observatory Network]Ambitious project to systematically monitor the environment on a continental scale is finally ready to break ground. Ready or not, the era of big data is coming to ecology. After years of discussion and debate, the United States is moving forward with an environmental moni­toring network that promises to help transform a traditionally small-scale, local science into a continental-scale group enterprise. The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) will consist of 20 ‘core’ observatories representing distinct eco-regions throughout the United States (see map). These will be bolstered by temporary stations that can be relocated wherever data need to be collected. The sites will house equipment and host visiting researchers, while gathering a range of environmental data over at least three decades. The result will be a vast database that scientists can mine to tackle broad questions such as how global warming, pollution and land-use change are affecting ecosystems across the country. “NEON is really about trying to understand the biology of the entire continent rather than the biology of a specific place,” says David Schimel, the project’s chief science officer, based in Boulder, Colorado.

2011/08/12: BBC: Shell fights spill near North Sea oil platformOil giant Royal Dutch Shell has said it is working to stop a leak at one of its North Sea oil platforms. The leak was found near the Gannet Alpha platform, 180 km (113 miles) from Aberdeen, Scotland. The company would not say how much oil may have been spilt so far, though it said it had “stemmed the leak significantly”.

2011/08/13: Ph&Ph: 20th Anniversary of e-print ArXivIf you’ve been in this field since the early 90s, you would be extremely familiar with the e-print ArXiv. This repository has undergone quite an evolution, and has transformed how physics works. It turns 20 this year. Its founder, Paul Ginsparg, wrote a fascinating article in Nature on how this simple website has revolutionized communications between physicists.

Within a few years it had evolved into a web resource at http://arXiv.org that now contains close to 700,000 full texts, receives 75,000 new texts each year, and serves roughly 1 million full-text downloads to about 400,000 distinct users every week (see graphs). It has broadened, first to cover most active research fields of physics, then to mathematics, nonlinear sciences, computer science, statistics and, more recently, to host parts of biology and finance infiltrated by physicists.

However, what is interesting here is that, while physicists don’t really have that big of an issue with sharing work that has not yet been published, researchers in other fields are not as enthusiastic.

It is evident that the Fukushima disaster is going to persist for some time. TEPCO says 6 to 9 months. Now the Japanese Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, says decades. We’ll see. At any rate this situation is not going to be resolved any time soon and deserves its own section.

2011/08/12: CBC: Giant tent to cover Japan nuclear reactorThe operator of Japan’s damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant is building a huge tent to cover one of the worst-hit reactors, officials said Friday. Officials hope the cover will keep radioactive materials that have already leaked from spreading, prevent rainwater seepage and offer a barrier from possible leaks or blasts in the future. The tent is being erected to provide a temporary replacement for the No. 1 reactor’s outer housing shell, which was destroyed in an explosion caused by high pressure the day after Japan’s deadly earthquake and tsunami on March 11. Construction of the tent and its foundation began this week, Koji Watanabe, a spokesman for the power utility, said Friday. The work couldn’t begin until now because the location was too dangerous for workers to operate in.

2011/08/11: EurActiv: Nuclear phase-out hits German giant E.ONE.ON, the world’s largest utility by sales, joined peers in posting weak half-year results as Germany’s decision to abandon nuclear power forced it to slash its profit outlook, its dividend and up to 11,000 jobs. The company is widely seen as a casualty of Germany’s plans to phase out nuclear energy.

2011/08/10: BBC: Arctic ‘Row to the Pole’ highlights ice cap meltingCornish rower Billy Gammon is among those taking part in the expedition Row to the Pole, highlighting the effect of climate change in the Polar Regions. Mounted by Scots adventurer Jock Wishart, the crew hopes to make history by rowing the 500 miles across the Arctic Sea. The journey from Canada is expected to take four to six weeks to complete.

2011/08/10: BBC: New theories over methane puzzleScientists say that there has been a mysterious decline in the growth of methane in the atmosphere in the last decades of the 20th century. Researchers writing in the journal Nature have come up with two widely differing theories as to the cause. One suggests the decline was caused by greater commercial use of natural gas, the other that increased use in Asia of artificial fertiliser was responsible. Both studies agree that human activities are the key element. And there are suggestions that methane levels are now on the rise again.

2011/08/08: PostMedia: Canada “too small” to develop Northwest Passage shipping, diplomat saysCanada will lose out to Russia’s Arctic shipping routes because it is too small to finance the infrastructure, France’s ambassador for the polar regions said Monday. Melting polar ice will make Canada’s Northwest Passage more accessible in the next decades, but Canada does not seem interested in exploiting it for shipping, said Michel Rocard, who recently returned from a tour of the Arctic aboard the Canadian icebreaker Amundsen. “I have the impression that Canada has given up on the competition to attract a large part of the traffic in 25 or 30 years,” Rocard said. The former French prime minister said Canada is “too small to finance itself the infrastructure” needed to spur commercial shipping through its Northwest Passage – a shorter route between European and Asian markets than the Suez and Panama canals. In contrast, Rocard said, Russia is an “Arctic force” with several icebreakers, including four new nuclear-powered ones.

Oh Joy! Now the geopolitics of Antarctica are in play as well:

2011/08/08: TheAge: Military urged to defend Antarctic territoryAustralia is being urged to defend its claim to Antarctic territory in future military planning ahead of inevitable global competition for the icy continent’s rich energy resources. Antarctica is thought to have the world’s third-largest oil reserves, locked away by an international treaty that preserves the territory from exploitation. But a new Lowy Institute report released today warns other nations are eyeing the abundant energy reserves as new technology makes it easier to access the frozen continent.

2011/08/11: SF Gate: Smaller Crops Forecast by U.S. After Planting Delays, Heat WaveCorn, soybean and spring-wheat harvests in the U.S., the world’s largest exporter, will be smaller than the government forecast last month after a damaging heat wave that may signal higher costs for food and biofuel. The U.S. Department of Agriculture cut its corn-crop estimate by 4.1 percent, reduced the soybean forecast by 5.2 percent, and said spring-wheat production will be 5.2 percent below what it predicted in July. The harvests for all three crops would be less than expected by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

2011/08/04: G&M: It’s time to get tough with the food casinoDroughts in Russia, monsoons in Pakistan. Weather once again is being blamed for lowering expected global food production. But by focusing on the weather, a more significant factor behind high prices escapes scrutiny: a massive amount of financial speculation in food commodities. This was a key cause of the 2008 food crisis. And it’s returned. In short, the agriculture bubble is back for an encore. It needs to be kicked off the stage once and for all.

2011/08/08: al Jazeera: Tropical storm threatens China chemical plantWorkers scramble to prevent toxic leak after storm waves breach barrier protecting the plant in Liaoning province. Workers at a chemical plant in China are scrambling to protect the facility after waves from a powerful tropical storm breached coastal defences, the state news agency Xinhua reports. Tropical Storm Muifa is barrelling towards the northeastern province of Liaoning, where it was expected to make landfall later on Monday after being downgraded from a typhoon. Xinhua said people living near the Fujiahua chemical plant in Dalian, a city in Liaoning, were being evacuated after the dyke protecting it from the sea was breached on Monday morning.

2011/08/12: ERW: Insight: Indian Ocean plays crucial role in supporting monsoonA new study by researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia, using 130 years of data, has shown how conditions in the Indian Ocean have moderated the drought-inducing effect of El Niño events over India in recent decades. With more than a third of the world’s population dependent on the monsoon season, the report calls for urgent studies on the effect of climate change on the Indian Ocean and how this could impact the monsoon season in the future.

2011/08/12: BBC: China manufacturer China CNR recalls 54 bullet trainsChinese state-owned train manufacturer, China CNR, will recall 54 bullet trains, as problems continue to plague the industry. The particular models were used on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail line, the firm said in a statement. The announcement comes a day after officials placed a temporary halt on all new high-speed rail projects. The government continues to face public fury over a crash that killed 40 people last month.

2011/08/11: BBC: Wenzhou crash: China freezes new rail projectsChinese officials have ordered a temporary halt on new high-speed rail projects, as the fallout continues from last month’s fatal crash near Wenzhou. The State Council said the safety of new projects would be re-evaluated before approval could be given. Safety checks would also be carried out on existing lines, and speed limits would be put in place.

2011/08/09: PlanetArk: Analysis: Water Rights Trade To Help Quench World ThirstMarkets in water rights are likely to evolve as a rising population leads to shortages and climate change causes drought and famine. But they will be based on regional and ethical trading practices and will differ from the bulk of commodity trade. Detractors argue trading water is unethical or even a breach of human rights, but already water rights are bought and sold in arid areas of the globe from Oman to Australia.

2011/08/11: PlanetArk: U.S. Nuclear Regulator Tied Up By Process: Chairman [Jaczko]The chairman of the U.S. nuclear regulator said his own commission is hamstrung by an inefficient, “flawed voting system” which distracts from its job of ensuring safety at the country’s power plants. Gregory Jaczko chided his colleagues on the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission for their approach to recommended changes in the wake of Japan’s nuclear disaster — an approach he said reflects “the current commission’s preoccupation with process at the expense of nuclear safety policy.” The focus “is a result of a flawed voting system that encourages the commission to sidestep the actual substantive policy issues presented, and this current situation is just one more example,” Jaczko said.

2011/08/11: EurActiv: Nuclear phase-out hits German giant E.ONE.ON, the world’s largest utility by sales, joined peers in posting weak half-year results as Germany’s decision to abandon nuclear power forced it to slash its profit outlook, its dividend and up to 11,000 jobs. The company is widely seen as a casualty of Germany’s plans to phase out nuclear energy.

2011/08/12: ABC(Au): EPA draws more flak over failed coal mine bidThe company behind a failed bid to mine coal near Margaret River has again criticised the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA). LD Operations wants to establish a coal mine at Osmington, near Margaret River, but the proposal was opposed by many locals and labelled “environmentally unacceptable” by the EPA.

2011/08/08: ABC(Au): Councils unite in coastal planning pushThe East Gippsland Shire Council has joined a national push to create a consistent coastal planning policy. The National Sea Change Taskforce is working with coastal councils to campaign for more support and clarity from state and federal governments.

2011/08/11: ABC(Au): Study finds carbon price to stimulate jobs growthA study by the ACTU and the Australian Conservation Foundation has found strong action on climate change will lead to job growth on the New South Wales mid-north coast. Both groups are part of the Southern Cross Climate Alliance, which will meet Lyne MP Rob Oakeshott later today to discuss the findings.

2011/08/10: ABC(Au): Nash carbon farming demand would ‘burden’ farmersThe Federal Government says its Carbon Farming Initiative will not endanger public food security as a Nationals’ Senator says. The Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Mark Dreyfus, has rejected calls from the Nationals’ Fiona Nash for impact statements on public food security to be made before any rural land is sold for carbon trading.

2011/08/12: PlanetArk: Japan Parties Reach Agreement On Renewable Energy BillJapan’s ruling Democratic Party reached an agreement with the main opposition parties on Thursday to pass a bill designed to promote renewable energy, an opposition lawmaker said, setting the stage for unpopular Prime Minister Naoto Kan to resign once the law is enacted. Kan, Japan’s fifth premier in five years, repeated on Thursday he was ready to quit once three conditions he had set were met.

2011/08/10: CNN: Japan’s prime minister to resign after post-quake bills passThe prime minister’s popularity plunged after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami – He promises to resign after two reconstruction bills pass the parliament – A cabinet minister announces an independent nuclear safety agencyJapanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Wednesday he’ll resign once new bills related to post-earthquake reconstruction pass parliament, to avoid a political vacuum. He’s expected to step down by the end of August.

2011/08/11: ChronicleHerald: Ottawa: Greenhouse goals far from reachA government report suggests that Canada will have to dramatically up its game to achieve its greenhouse gas reduction goals. Environment Canada’s own assessment of the country’s efforts to reduce emissions behind climate change says current measures go only one-quarter of the way to the Harper government’s announced target. Another analysis by the environmental think-tank Pembina Institute says provincial and federal governments are only one-tenth of the way there. It’s a big gap either way and Ottawa shows little sign of increasing its efforts to close it, said Andrew Leach, a professor of energy economics at the University of Alberta.

2011/08/10: PostMedia: Federal oilsands strategy targeted provincial plans: documentsThe federal government’s advocacy strategy to promote the oilsands sector in partnership with oil and gas companies and the province of Alberta was not just about polishing the industry’s image and countering foreign climate change policies. Newly released federal documents reveal the outreach also targeted the environmental protection efforts proposed by Canadian provinces.

2011/08/09: PostMedia: Canada says oil, gas industry organized PR strategy for oilsandsNatural Resources Canada says a powerful oil and gas industry lobby group was responsible for organizing a key meeting and some controversial messaging, in partnership with government, to polish the image of Alberta’s oilsands industry. In newly released emails and internal records, department officials said the strategy to “turn up the volume” and get “the right attitude” on oilsands advocacy was actually proposed by high-ranking officials from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers during a March 2010 meeting involving senior federal and Alberta government officials, as well CEOs from oil and gas companies.

2011/08/13: CfC: FinallyI’ve been waiting for this for more than a year. Finally, a real judge has had the chance to rule on a typical G20 arrest. And, unsurprisingly, the judge has ruled that it was the police who were to blame for the violence

2011/08/12: CBC: Toronto G20 policing too aggressive, judge saysA Toronto judge has blasted police tactics during last year’s G20 summit. Lawyers defending some of the people charged with offences in connection with last year’s summit say a Toronto judge’s ruling this week is going to have “an enormous impact” on their cases.

2011/08/12: TStar: Aggression during G20 rally ‘perpetrated by police,’ judge rulesA Toronto judge has ruled that “adrenalized” police officers acted as aggressors at a peaceful political rally that led to dozens of arrests during last year’s G20 summit. “The only organized or collective physical aggression at that location that evening was perpetrated by police each time they advanced on demonstrators,” Justice Melvyn Green ruled on Thursday. He was referring to a demonstration at Queen St. and Spadina Ave. on Saturday, June 26, 2010. Green stated police criminalized political demonstration, which is “vital” to maintain a “viable democracy.”

2011/08/13: PostMedia: Oil line option will shift the risks to AlaskaLatest plan for Northern Gateway project will be more expensive, but it has the significant advantage of support from the first nations Let the Alaskans take the risk appears to be the idea behind a proposal being peddled as an alternative to the highly controversial Northern Gateway Project. G Seven Generations Ltd., a Vancouver-based management consulting firm, recently unveiled a new strategy to transport crude from Fort McMurray, Alta., to the West Coast. Under the Unifying Nations RailCo Initiative, Alberta oil would travel by electric rail, then be shipped to thirsty Asian markets from an existing marine terminal at Valdez, Alaska. This plan has a huge and unmistakable advantage: Aboriginal chiefs like it. And the company is confident environmentalists and the broader B.C. public will like it too. Under the scheme, oilsands product would be unloaded from rail cars at Delta Junction in Alaska, then fed into an existing pipeline that snakes southward to Valdez.

2011/08/12: CBC: Cost of ending wheat board monopoly to be studiedThe federal government is preparing to study the financial impact of a decision it has already taken to strip the Canadian Wheat Board of its monopoly on Prairie wheat and barley sales. The revelation has led to more accusations that the government’s move, which could alter the prices farmers are paid, has been driven more by dogmatic principle than by evidence.

2011/08/11: WpgFP: Farmers voice CWB frustration — Hundreds pack meeting outside cityThe atmosphere Wednesday evening in the main hall of the Oak Bluff Recreation Centre, just southwest of Winnipeg, was filled with the frustration of people who felt that higher powers are pushing forward, regardless of what they have to say. It was standing room only as hundreds of farmers discussed the future of the Canadian Wheat Board at a meeting organized by the single-desk marketer of wheat and barley. The Harper government intends to end the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly on western Canadian wheat and barley, effective Aug. 1, 2012.

2011/08/09: CBC: Imperial has new plan to haul huge oilsands rigsImperial Oil has taken a new tack in the problem-plagued transport of massive pieces of oilsands equipment from Idaho to one of its projects in northern Alberta. The petroleum company has decided to break some of the equipment down into smaller pieces and transport them to Edmonton for reassembly over a different route than originally planned.

2011/08/12: PostMedia: Postponing capital spending could undermine aging power gridBC Hydro’s plans to defer $800 million in capital spending in the next three years could affect the power grid’s reliability and could be a safety concern. Hydro pledged to postpone spending on capital projects Thursday to help cut its planned rate increase in half, an announcement made jointly by B.C. Energy and Mines Minister Rich Coleman and BC Hydro president and CEO Dave Cobb.

2011/08/07: G&M: Oil sands expected to undo carbon cutsThe development of Canada’s oil sands will single-handedly undo greenhouse gas gains made by weaning the country’s electrical supply off coal, a government study predicts. The Environment Canada forecast of Canada’s carbon output over the next decade casts in stark terms the challenge facing the country as it pursues major energy development at a time of continued global efforts to bat down emissions.

2011/08/11: CBC: Alberta OK’s coal power plant, angering eco groupsAlberta’s electricity regulator has given its final approval for a new coal-fired power plant just north of the Rockies, and an environmental group is crying foul because the decision was rushed so the facility won’t face stringent federal limits on its greenhouse gas emissions. Calgary-based Maxim Power got the official go-ahead Thursday from the Alberta Utilities Commission for a $1.7-billion expansion of its H.R. Milner plant near Grande Cache. The company will build a 500-megawatt generating station next to its existing 150-megawatt one, which is to be shut down in 2012.

2011/08/12: PostMedia: Europe fights Ontario power subsidies — Program offers incentives to use domestic goodsThe European Union launched a formal complaint against Ontario at the World Trade Organization Thursday, following Japan in challenging a program that pays out above-market rates to wind and solar developers in return for the purchase of domestic technology and services. The EU announced its complaint in Brussels Thursday, saying the rich contracts are “in clear breach of the WTO rules that prohibit linking subsidies to the use of domestic products.” Europe had backed Japan’s initial complaint early last fall, but as a third party could not seek compensation or changes in Canadian practices.

2011/08/10: G&M: In Ontario, gloomy skies for solar powerSilfab Ontario has been making solar panels for barely four months in a refurbished factory west of Toronto, but already employees are nervous about the security of their jobs. Plans to hire more people and expand production are on hold as demand for solar parts wavers and stock sits unsold. Several companies who install solar panels have been unable to pay for their orders because they’re waiting for assurances the power projects will be connected to Ontario’s electricity grid. A backup in the approvals process has brought the fledgling industry almost to a standstill.

2011/08/08: NBBJ: N.L. biofuel exemption riles renewable fuels advocateThe federal government’s decision to permanently exempt Newfoundland and Labrador from a two per cent renewable content requirement for diesel fuel and home heating oil may be partly based on logistics, but the head of a national association for renewable fuels believes it’s thanks to the lobbying efforts of the oil and gas industry. And he says the exemption has implications for future generations.

2011/08/08: CBC: Calgary oil firm set to begin Yukon explorationA small Calgary company backed by a Chinese petroleum firm is ready to begin a major exploration project for the Eagle Plains area along the Dempster Highway, a company official says. At the Vuntut Gwitchin general assembly in Old Crow on the weekend, Northern Cross Energy Limited president Richard Wyman told members his firm is putting $20 million into the exploration program after winning government approval with a $150,000 bid earlier this year.

2011/08/08: SciAm:PI: Energy Sustainability Conference Begins in Washington, DCThis week, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is hosting the 5th International Conference on Energy Sustainability in Washington, DC. Over the next three days this conference will bring together researchers, scientists and engineers from around the world for more than 300 presentations related to the topic of energy sustainability.

2011/08/12: Fraunhofer: Better, Faster, Cheaper: Doing Business with the SunThe change in energy policy has been decided; Germany needs more green energy. From September 5-9 in Hamburg, everything will revolve around our biggest energy supplier: the sun. At the European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, in Hall B4G, Stand C12, Fraunhofer researchers will present new methods for making solar cells cheaper and more efficient.

2011/08/10: Risoe: Status of nuclear power 2010Risø DTU has made its eighth report in the series: ‘Nuclear power and Nuclear Safety’, which gives a global overview of nuclear energy with a focus on safety and preparedness. This year’s report is a bit delayed because of the accident in Fukushima, which is also mentioned in the report that would normally cover only the year 2010.

My first novel Water was published in Canada May, 2007. The American release was in October. An Introductionto the novel is available, along with the Unpublished Forewordand the Launch Talk(which includes some quotations), An overview of my writing is available here.